Attendees at the Values Voter Summit were polled on their top issues. Stopping abortion was the No. 1 vote getter, but No. 2 was reducing government spending. Same-sex marriage didn’t even make the top five.

Won’t this make the average religious rightist fear that the tea party’s priorities are misplaced and that economic change is the altar upon which core moral values will be sacrificed?

How about the run-of-the-mill tea party-goer? Many have strong libertarian streaks and hate everything big and domineering. Surely they don’t want to replace Big Government with Big Religion, orchestrating the intimacies of their lives, their reading and viewing habits, and their choice of drink.